Talk:Learning theory (education)

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[edit] POV

This article right now reads like an ad for constructivism which is discredited everywhere except the professional schools of education. Needs fixing to be more substantibe and attuned to the realities of schooling in US and elsewhere. Will get to it in due time :) Watcher 20:50, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

The article needs thorough re-working to remove a thinly veiled POV. The two perspectives mentioned in the current article (constructivism and behaviorism) are not learning theories, but rather philosopical stances within which learning theories are constructed.


[edit] ==

I don't know why you make the claim the constructionism is discredited. I've just spent days researching this topic using ebsco. There are a few articles by authors who are feverently against constructionism, published in England. They seem to be simply semantic arguments. In application it is simple: use active, not passive techniques; knowledge is built upon previous knowledge. For instance, if you cannot add you cannot learn to multiply.

[edit] =

I am confused as well. I have been studying human learning theories for more than a year now and I would have to say that Constructivism comes closer to exaplaining how human beings process and aquire new knowledge. Could you address your issues with Constructivism in more detail. It might help me to better understand the discussion. Thanks! - Xphile1998, 11/17/05

I am a professor of education and contribute research to academic journals on theories of learning. The assertion that constructivism is simply POV is wrong. Constructivism is a "theory of the mind," and, thus, attempts to explain how human minds construct knowledge. Since about the mid-1980s, constructivism has been central to most current research on learning from multiple academic fields, including: psychology, education, sociology.

Where the article runs amiss is in extending just post-modern and informal theories. Socio-constructivist theory, an extension of constructivist theory, is a more recently used theory that identifies learning as a social phenomenon. Related to this are terms like: Semiotics, language, identity, and discourse. Informal learning theories usually are socio-constructivist. And there are just too many post-modern theories to even begin to tie them all to the single term "learning theories."

Most importantly, theories of learning have historically looked at observable behaviors (Behaviorism) and unobservable thinking processes (Cognitivism and Constructivism). Right now we are at a crossroads because theorists are beginning to look at biological influences to learning (Theories of the Brain), thus combining the observable and unobservable to infer how humans learn. --CMDooley 17:20, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cognitive Information Processing?

Cognitive Information Processing is mentioned in the heading, but it isn't described in the body of the article. I don't know much about the subject, but how significant is this theory? Either it's insignificant and needs to be removed from the header, or it's significant and needs to be described. --Jetamors 01:27, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Jetamors. Matatigre36 01:14, 5 March 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Dispute with "education" as part of title

Firstly I am new to Wikipedia as an editor and contributor so am uncertain how everything works at the moment so please bear with me.

For reference Learning theory disambiguation page.

I recommend replacing the word education for psychology. The reason being that theories of learning are theories within Psychology, as opposed to education itself. Psychology encompasses a wider range of applications of learning theory, as opposed to education which is merely one application (albeit possibly the largest). If there are no objections to this I will make the required alterations and update the disambiguation page. --anewman 10:31, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Intended rework of article

While not the best qualification I managed to get 79% for the Learning and Behaviour module of my Psychology degree so feel I could be of some help to this article. I would like to rework the content of this page giving references and so on, but I guess this is probably best done independently so the page does not become disjointed. I intend to make propositions on any alterations here as soon as I have a full outline and a good deal of the work done. Particularly as I feel this may involve a large amount of deletion/reworking of current content (but will try my best to include current content where it is accurate and supportable). --anewman 10:31, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Philosophy of Education integration

This article needs to be integrated with Philosophy of Education. Possibly Philosophy of Education should have its "Method of teaching" section link here. -- TimNelson 14:50, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sources?

many have split off from the mainstream holding that learning is a primarily self taught thing, and that the ideal learning situation is one that is self taught. According to this dogma, learning at its basic level is all self taught, and class rooms should be eliminated since they do not fit the perfect model of self learning. However, real world results indicate that isolated students fail. Social support seems crucial for sustained learning.

I've made bold the items in question. Are there sources to back this up or is this the opinion of the contributior? As far as using the term "real world results", that's vague and subjective. "Isolated students fail"? According to whom? There is no mention of nor link to autodidactism, whose very definition proves otherwise.


--Goochiegirl 02:03, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

wal lang gusto ko lang magtrip —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.107.88.141 (talk) 12:12, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] anyone have an idea of the learning theory (if any) behind the standardized testing and No Child Left Behind craze? Behaviorist??

In my assessment, the public and media-driven conversation about education reform misses references to the fact that there are different theories of learning. How can the public and parents make informed choices without this context? My admittedly biased view in favor of the constructivist/holistic/developmental/brain-based theory of learning is that if more parents were aware that NCLB, in my opinion, is basically B.F. Skinner behaviorism (ring the bell and doggie slobbers) a very different education story could evolve in America. In any case, for the record, this discussion can also include holistic education as another learning theory. Scott H. Forbes has written a very valuable and comprehensive book, "Holistic Education" on the subject, but know that he (again, in my opinion) dismisses Waldorf education as too rigid to be truly "holistic". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.174.42.36 (talk) 13:35, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Are criticisms needed?

Is it necessary to include criticisms of learning theories in this article, or can readers just be directed to the primary articles for each theory for that? It also seems very unbalanced to criticize constructivism but include no criticisms of other theories. That whole section is uncited and POV, so unless someone can clean it up and balance it with criticisms of other theories, I think I'll just cut the section.WeisheitSuchen (talk) 17:03, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Since no sources were added to the section and no objections were raised here, I deleted the criticisms section. If someone wants to create a section for criticisms of all the theories, with sources, that would be fine. I still think that the criticisms are fine on the full articles for each theory and that perhaps we don't need to get into them here. WeisheitSuchen (talk) 03:21, 8 February 2008 (UTC)